Had to Vent....

PEG has dropped the son off at my in-laws again on a Sat afternoon and was supposedly going to pick him up at 10:00 pm tonight.  My MIL said that PEG had texted her and was thinking about just letting him stay the night, I mean seriously, why pick your child up when it is so much easier for you to leave him at the free babysitter and that gives you another night off?

So frustrated with her, I guess she is back to working weekends for extra money and now spends even less time with the son.   We got to webcam with the son, he gets excited to see us, wants to see his room and favorite toys, but then he just seems sad and kind of shuts down on us.  I wish I knew what he was thinking.  Maybe its just his personality, but he just never seems as happy as other kids his age.  It is hard to know if he is sad because of his situation, or if he is being a normal kid and is just not all that happy.

PEG texted Hubbs the other day saying she was looking at preschools and really liked this private school and if Hubbs would split the $3,000 a year tuition with her, she would enroll the son there.  For those who don't remember PEG has issues with her sister and is in constant competition with her.  Unfortunately this sister has a boy who is or would be in the same grade as the son.  PEG wants the son to be held back for a year (even though he hasn't even started preschool) because she doesn't want him to be in the same grade as his cousin.  She also bought a house in a completely different (not good) school district so he wouldn't go to the same (good) school as his cousin.  Crazy?  Yes I think so.

PEG admitted to moving to a not so good school district because of her sister and wants us to pay half the cost of tuition so that the son can go to private school when she lived in a perfectly good district before hand.   The hilarious part about this is that the tuition is not expensive when you add up what yearly daycare costs, she pays $500 a month for the son now which is super cheap,  that alone adds up to $6900, with the son not needing full time daycare her cost goes down, and I am sure with the $1200 a month we pay her she could find a way to make the payments.  It cracks me up that even though she has been paid far more than she ever deserved or needed to be paid to cover the son's costs, she still wants more.

We live in a large metropolitan city and will be paying $1040 a month for peanut in daycare, we pay almost $900 a month for the son when he is here during the summer.  We pay for his medical, we pay her child support, we pay for his daycare when he is with us, we have to buy our own clothes, and toys for the son, and we pay at least $450 a month to travel to see the son, and she wants us to pay her an additional $1500 a year to cover half of the school costs?  She gets $1800 from us in the summer when she doesn't even have the son, why doesn't that count!!!   Hubbs of course ignored her, she has asked us for this a few times in the past, and it is insane.  Why can't PEG realize these were her decisions, she needs to pay for them not us.  Hubbs has more than paid for his mistake and will continue to pay for the next 14 years.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, she has never had to suffer the consequences of having a baby out of wedlock on her own, she has never had to struggle financially from having a child unlike the majority of single moms.  She has been very lucky to have child support every month (even before she would agree to sign the custody paperwork), a roof over her head, and no real costs from having a baby since her child support pretty much covers everything for her living in the small town that she does.

I know a lot of very hard working struggling single moms, who do not have family to help out, or a dad that is even involved with their kids, let alone one that pays child support.  She gets child support tax free, claims the son in her taxes every year, and gets to write off daycare.  It would be different if we were only paying her $500 or less a month, but based on her expenses I don't see why she cannot apply the child support to the tuition, I can understand why she doesn't want to, and I think she has gotten used to living off that money, so having to use it for something to pay for the son is just not something she wants to do.

Here I am stressing about the costs of peanut, and Hubbs and I have great jobs and have saved to prepare for this moment but it still scary, and I know how much kids cost.  If I didn't have to worry about the costs of the son, it wouldn't be as bad, but the fear of having child support increased, or just the cost in airfare increasing, it adds to our already growing cost to have the son in our lives. Crazy to think if we were to ever get custody and didn't get a dime from PEG in child support we would still be money ahead?

It isn't fair, but I know thats life, and the it is the life I choose.  Had to vent, my temper has been on a short fuse lately.  Not helped by the fact we had terrible ice and snow and I was trapped in the house for a few days, talk about stir crazy!  Glad to be back at work today!